


Number Seven

by QueenElizabeth



Category: British Actor RPF, Doctor Who RPF, Peter Capaldi - Fandom, Scottish Actor RPF, The Thick of It (TV) RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, F/M, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, Rain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-20
Updated: 2015-08-20
Packaged: 2018-04-16 08:09:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4617906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenElizabeth/pseuds/QueenElizabeth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternate Universe: Reader shows up at her friend Peter's door for comfort during a difficult time.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Number Seven

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lornesgoldenhair](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lornesgoldenhair/gifts).



Number Seven.

You pulled yourself up the steps to find yourself face-to-face with the heavy azure door. You stared at the bell as the cool summer rain danced on the street. You closed your eyes, halfway expecting to see your bedroom ceiling the next time they opened. You ached. Your body was heavy and your eyelids were red and raw; your hands were cold and your soul ached.

The bell.

You saw only the doorbell when you mustered the strength to focus ahead of you once more. You swallowed hard as if trying to imbibe some fortitude directly from the London air. “What am I even doing,” you thought, allowing yourself to admit just how lost you had truly become.

Just once.

“I’ll ring once and he is probably asleep, and if that doesn’t wake him straight away, I’ll walk back,” you thought. There was no need to bother him this late. Probably has something to do in the morning early anyway. Probably isn’t even home yet, in fact. Just once is okay, and you meekly went with that.

A light.

He switched on the light on the second floor. No time at all, and you saw a shadow. “Why did I come here, oh gods, I must hide.” You froze on the doorstep as the rain picked up. You felt your heart pound in your chest, thump in your ear, in sync with the footsteps coming to find you. You shivered and stuffed your hands in your pockets with your phone and your keys.

The door.

He swung open the door to a heavy creak, and fixed his eyes on your own in one fluid motion. “My darling, what’s wrong? Come inside… are you okay? What’s happened?” he implored.

“I’m fine.”

“You’re very clearly not,” he insisted. “It’s nearly eleven, and you’re soaked:”

“Come inside.”

“I think I like it out here,” you explained. “Peter, my heart is broken.” He stepped into his boots with his bare feet and stepped outside without tying them. He joined you in the rain on his doorstep. He never even asked why or how. He didn’t really need to know anyway. That’s just how things were with you two. He took your hand, and he stood before his own door, in the rain, on a late August night, without question.

“I’m sorry.”

He simply told you he was sorry, and he held tightly to your hand. “I’m sorry, and I’m here,” he said.

“I’m freezing;”

“I’ve been out here too long,” you explained. “I walked here,” you said.

He laughed.

He laughed and he put his arms around you and guided you through the door. “You need to get dry. You need to get dry, and you need tea,” he explained, and he marched to put on the kettle straight away. He called for you to go to his room and get a dry shirt, and so you did. You knew the way, though you’d never been in there aside from parties, when you’d toss in your coat and your bag.

His closet.

It was absolutely everything you would have imagined it to be, had you ever indulged yourself in imagining it. Rows of shirts and jackets, twice as many t-shirts as any single human should own, and it all smelled just exactly like his hug.

His hug.

He appeared behind you quietly, as you surveyed the dry clothes, and helped you out of your wet jacket. He hung it in a door frame, and motioned for you to sit on the bed. He took off your wellies and complimented you on your colorful socks, and threw you a fresh shirt featuring an unnamed stylized monster. He turned his back as you removed your wet shirt and put on the new one.

“Thank you.”

You had a hard time finding words, but you were drowning in gratitude to your friend. Your friend who was always there for you. The one you could call on your commute home after a difficult day. The one to whom you could shoot a look at a party, and find wordlessly coming to your conversational rescue. The one to whom it seems you could show up on his doorstep in the middle of the night, and he wouldn’t bat an eye.

“Drink this.”

He returned to your side with a perfectly brewed cuppa, and an ear. A patient ear, and a warm arm around your shoulders.

You sipped.

You sipped your tea and you planned your speech in your head while he graciously waited. You were getting warmer now. Warm, and more coherent. That was good. You could tell him everything. You hadn’t really told anyone about any of it yet, and it grew heavier with each and every person who saw you and didn’t take a piece of your grief with them as they passed. It had become too much. You couldn’t carry it alone.

Not forever.

“Peter, I…” you started to explain. You started to explain, and you broke down. Your hands grew unsteady, and you put your cup down on the table near the bed. Your voice cracked in two, and your tears fell heavier than any deluge outside.

Completely shattered.

Your heart was broken, and no one could fix it. No one could change it now. Did you need to be fixed? Maybe shattered was right. Maybe this was how you were supposed to be, given everything. He held you in his arms and gave you a safe place to crumble.

“It’s okay…”

He whispered to you that it was okay. Not the situation, but the crying. You were so accustomed to everyone’s telling you to stop crying when you cried. That things would improve. That there were worse things in the world more worthy of tears. “Hush, now,” they would say.

Not him.

He just held on to you in that barely-lit bedroom, as the sound of an English rain shower drummed unaffected through the night. You told him everything. Every word you gave him lightened your burden as he picked up those pieces and carried them for you, if only until the sun came up again. He took the couch across the room while you slept in his bed, and he didn’t need to tell you that he loved you.

You knew.


End file.
